Sunday, March 13, 2011

Shallow Water is More Dangerous Than The Internet

The premise of Nicholas Carr's new book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains is that reading on the internet is not the same as reading an actual book, and he proves this on the molecular level, with research from neuroscience and psychology. It turns out that there's nothing like a book-- an analog book made of paper pages-- as a delivery system for putting knowledge into a human brain . . . to take short-term memories and make them long-term, you need a "thimbleful by thimbleful" approach, and if things move too fast-- hyper-links, images, e-mail and Twitter interruptions, filler-- then you will experience "cognitive overload" and remember very little.


I'm not going to argue against Carr's thesis, as many critics have. I think they are scared of his findings because, like everyone else in the free world, they are spending a hell of a lot of time on the net, and they don't want to face the music. I'm also not going to agree with the majority of people that say the internet is making us smarter. I agree with Carr. Google is making us stupid. And the Ghoogles are making us stupider. Many people have said that the knowledge stored on the internet, readily accessible and search-able, allows us to free up our brains for other thoughts, but this is patently false. The more we have in our own brains, the better we can think. And study after study has proven that the more facts you know, the better you are at reading and memorizing new facts. Paradoxically, our brains are not like computers with finite memories. When an actor memorizes the lines for a play, it doesn't make it more difficult for him to memorize the lines for his next play; in fact, it makes it easier.  When the Teej memorizes statistics about every college basketball player in the nation, it doesn't hinder his ability to quote lines from bad '80's movies (but not a particular good '80's movie). When Igor learned about vajazzling, it didn't erase his memories of every single thing every person he was acquainted with did or said during college.

But what Nicholar Carr is forgetting is that having the internet around may make students more likely to read something-- even if it is hyper-linked and on a screen-- rather than do a host of other things . . . things not even remotely like reading . . . and perhaps that's not a bad thing. When I was young, in high school and college, I didn't have access to the internet. I think Al Gore had invented it, but he hadn't told anyone about it yet. And so I read plenty of actual books. Despite all this deep thinking, I was involved in some pretty stupid stuff. I hit my head a lot. Once I dove into a river, drunk, with the intention of riding a cooler down some rapids, but-- luckily-- the spot I chose was six inches of shallow water over a black rock. I had to be fished out, unconscious, with a broken tooth, but I probably wouldn't have survived the rapids. Conclusion: diving into shallow water is more dangerous than the "shallow reading" that we do on G:TB.

I often chose to bang my head against another person's head . . . I'd pretend I had a secret to tell them and then SMASH! My friends all considered this social head-butting good fun. The things I witnessed were astounding-- and I can't be particularly specific here because I don't want to put any of the G:TB staff at risk for prosecution-- and I should point out that I was never directly involved in these things, in fact, maybe they didn't happen at all-- but I'm talking about daring ledge dives, risking life and limb to fix a TV aerial, arson, fisticuffs, vandalism, pumpkin chucking, drug use and moving bookshelves, high speed chases on stolen bicycles, keg filching, strudel stealing, DEA posing, projectile vomiting for fun and profit, the planting of preserved reptiles and amphibians, plenty of public nudity and hundreds of other stupid, dangerous, and very analog activities that we did to while away the time (Igor's memory on this topic is better than mine).


My hypothesis is this: if we had the internet to tool around on, we might have been a bit dumber, but we would have been a hell of a lot safer. There's a lot of discussion about how awful cyber-bullying is today, but is it worse than real bullying? Or drinking a shitload of bourbon and going out to fight townies? Or using an SUV to drag people around on a rope in a snow covered parking lot? Or whipping bottles at people? Or taking your shirt off so someone can serve a ping-pong ball at your bare chest? Maybe cyber-bullying is worse than pong-ping, but it's not worse than having to bend over and let a grown man paddle your ass with a wooden plank.

In fact (perhaps from reading all those regular books) we were too smart. We were too smart, with too much free time (when you were this smart, you didn't need to go to class) and no Facebook to occupy our time and dumb us down. So if you ventured into my fraternity, you might find someone riding a giant table up and down a hall soaked with citrus, drinking sangria out of a wok. Or tossing a flaming frozen duck off a balcony at a passerby (and remember, I was never directly involved with these incidents . . . I just happened to witness them). Or stumbling drunk out of a girl's bed, urinating in her closet, and then attempting to put on her pants. Or any number of things that our staff could probably remember and describe better than me (because I was never there). Would these things have happened if we had the internet? We'll never know, but I'm hoping my children will watch YouTube videos of people playing the "there's no reason for that" game instead of actually participating themselves.

The positive thing for the staff of G:TB is this: we can claim that we represent the last "intellectual," generation, and though we are dumbing ourselves down each and every day with our internet use here at G:TB, at least we have our traditional education to rely on as our bedrock . . . unless, of course, instead of reading books, you spent your youth watching Network Television.

67 comments:

  1. just read that duval county (jacksonville) schools will very likely not have athletics next year due to budget cuts. wow.

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  2. not nearly as bad at my district, but if the budget doesn't pass, which it most likely won't, then there won't be any eighth grade athletics and my soccer coaching job will evaporate.

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  3. this post ensures our selection sunday coverage has nowhere to go but down.

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  4. down is where we live. it's our wheelhouse, now that we took it from jerry.

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  5. On the topic of budget cuts, I her that several nj towns (including wealthier towns like Holmdel) may make students pay to participate in clubs or sports. Brutal for lower income folks.

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  6. we already have "pay to play" at my school, and it's generally an upper middle class town. 50 bucks a sport. it doesn't defray much because of busing costs, which are absurdly pricey.

    we need monorails. or those mag-lev trains.

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  7. Duval County is absurdly large and (I'm guessing) that can't help the costs associated with interscholastic sports. It's a shame if they have to cut sports altogether as the sports in Duval are damn fine.

    I heard there were some decent basketball games on today.

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  8. I think I'm going to become a lactation consultant.

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  9. yes mark - jax is the largest town in terms of people in our wonderful state. it's also the largest town in the country in terms of area. and now you know....

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  10. Dan, as a Florida native, I'm insulted you think I didn't already know these things. Also, as a Florida native, I'm in the market for some new jorts.

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  11. i figured you were well aware of that...it was more for the benefit of the readership here. i like helping them learn new things.

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  12. so david hasselhoff is following me on twitter. this is a big day for my entire family.

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  13. okay- so now the teej is posting on something called sb nation washington dc. has he defected? should we fire him? i was almost going to "twitter" this but i decided against it.

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  14. Is "twatted" the past tense of "twitter"?

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  15. It's not just the Teej...rob and I have a full evening ahead of ourselves.

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  16. http://dc.sbnation.com/authors/rob-russell

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  17. dave, we're extending the brand, seeking to monetize the additional eyeballs, and vertically integrating across multiple platforms.

    also, we're getting paid huge sbnation dollars, which will be used to fund obft chicanery.

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  18. I know everyone hates Duke...but you have to love Nolan Smith.

    And, in case you don't love him yet, I'm digging this out of the archives...

    http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=nolan

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  19. the next hour is among my favorite hours of the year

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  20. Congrats to Rob & TJ for going pro.
    Gheorghe would be proud.

    Since I wasn't involved in the negotiations for this one, I'm guessing I don't get my agent's percentage this time, huh?

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  21. your commission would amount a halfway-decent bottle of wine. teej will bring it by next week.

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  22. and by halfway-decent, i mean 'something you could buy at the supermarket'.

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  23. georgia, uab, clemson all in? disaster for #3bids4caa.

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  24. I Love Nolan Smith already, Shlara but that isa great article. His improvement from freshman year to to Sr. year has been remarkable.

    And I echo Rob's sentiments about the hour of selection show. Even better since I'm sitting around setting up my new iMac that the wife gave me on our wedding day.

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  25. I really don't like these pod things...I mean the "west" is Charlotte. Just dumb

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  26. holy cow-- congrats. i expect some trickle down groupies from your fame at obft.

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  27. sbnation is a 6 pagerank!

    what does the sb stand for?

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  28. richmond a 12? down goes vandy.

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  29. vcu! our little hashtag has left the nest.

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  30. I was just about to ask that. So, 3 bids for CAAis a reality?

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  31. The two non-tourney winner CAA seeds are #8 and #11.

    Which means ODU is probably higher

    Not too shabby...

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  32. Mason is seeded higher than ODU!!

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  33. In the immortal words of Cartman, "I hate you Kyle"

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  34. suck it, mid-majority. deal in a new reality.

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  35. 3 bids for the caa!
    hooray!

    is someone going to write a dummies guide to bracketology? i would like to win the school pool this year, but i know nothing.

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  36. Thanks Teej. ACL for the south park reference.

    Couch

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  37. I invited your boy Whelliston to suck it, Rob. On the twitter machine.

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  38. Hubert and Jay B are shitting on the CAA.
    BOOO!

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  39. ESPN needs to GET OVER IT about Colorado and Va Tech.

    Enough.

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  40. Wow. ESPN getting very high and mighty.

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  41. sounds like i'm glad i missed the espn coverage

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  42. got a post scheduled for tomorrow morning. you might be able to guess the content.

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  43. I think there might be a typo over at SB. 2011 or 2010 for the Tribe near miss?

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  44. '10 - what's it say at SB?

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  45. kq's husband is my 200th twitter follower. much of that sentence would have made absolutely zero sense to me 3 years ago.

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  46. Rob--I hope you're writing about the cry-baby commentators who are complaining about #3bids4caa.

    And, is anyone else watching the Fab Five doc? I TOTALLY agree with Burwell that C-Webb desperately wanted to be a kid from the hood, not a suburban kid...

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  47. this documentary is pretty great

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  48. Shlara, we're working on that...

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  49. the teej is efforting that post, shlara

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  50. I'm loving it.
    Esp since I got to work with 2/5 of them.

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  51. this is gonna sound crazy, but if odu gets by butler and can somehow beat pitt, i think they can get to the final four - especially if florida gets knocked out early.

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  52. is that a chris gent sighting?

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  53. Two more comments:
    1. Jalen Rose clearly got new teeth
    2. I would not want the behind-the-scenes stories and video of my freshman year turned into a doc 20 years later.

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  54. shlara, odu/butler is the 12:40 game at verizon on thursday.

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  55. rob - happy to help with the number count even though i'm a self professed twittiot.

    loving this fab five doc. those mich alum sure do craft some nice letters.

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  56. ahh, the crack house incident

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  57. a dude got washed 9 miles out to see by the tsunami in japan - and got rescued.

    http://bit.ly/dSJb2I

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  58. um, I didn't realize that super-agent Rob Pelinka was so cute until tonight.

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  59. OMG. and according to wikipedia, he was being recruited by W&M and some Ivy's until he played well in a Xmas high school tourney his junior year. If he had only played poorly in that tourney, we could have been married with 3 kids by now...

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  60. rob -- is tomorrow's post about how the selection committee screwed Wake?

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